Mr. Chair, I would respond by saying that the focus, be it either priority areas or the countries of focus, is really a decision of policy. Those would not be areas that we would challenge. We would accept them as policy and then see how the policy is being implemented.
What we note in the report, though, is that international development often involves very long-term projects. It takes a while before you see results. There have been, as we note in the report in exhibit 8.4, a number of different priority focus areas. There have been a lot of changes, and I think that has created a certain confusion, both within the agency and outside the agency, as to where the focus really is. Government as well agreed with the principle that they needed to reduce the number of focus areas and reduce the number of countries to be more effective. They came up with a list of 20 countries. They currently still have projects in at least 60 countries, so we do not see the narrowing of focus that has been agreed to as being essential for effectiveness.
As well, there were planning documents, by country, as to what CIDA would do and what was expected. All of those planning documents have expired; we are told there are other documents in process, but they have not been approved and communicated more broadly to provide information as to what the objectives are.